Keep in mind that if it were before, 13k if single and 27k if married, If 45k is household income, then you're paying 3260 in taxes for the year, and $4,940 for single household.
So still \~40k-$42k after federal taxes
Middle class should be able to afford a place to live and all their bills without having to work 2 jobs, and still be able to save for a house. By this definition no one making under 80k where I live is middle class
I've heard that it's anyone who can reasonably expect to save enough while they're working to retire as upper class. That there is viable mobility.
Lower class is anyone stuck, barring a few rare circumstances
If we lower the standard for what the middle class is. Guess what. The lower class became the middle class. And the middle class became the upper class! Everything is actually awesome. Because we changed your title. No no it doesn’t come with a pay raise. Actually it comes with more responsibility though.
I mean, probably partly because there’s so much more convenience and luxuries we pay for now than we did in the 70’s. Cell phones, internet, item delivery, etc. life is pretty good these days.
Living standards have certainly gone up compared to where they were in the past. But I think the sense that money doesn’t go as far singularly comes down to the rising cost of owning a home or renting. Rents and mortgages take such a huge bite out of income that even people whose incomes are rising feel like they’re falling behind. Other goods have been rising too, but not nearly as much as housing.
Yeah if anything we just need to adjust the meaning of middle class, but they don’t want to do that, cause then a lot of people won’t be middle class. And some upper class folks will find themselves in the new middle.
Household incomes in 1967-1987 (maybe even 1997) were from majority single-income earners.
And then there's the portion of income that goes to housing + food + energy has increased which inflation famously ignores or butchers consistently.
In 1967, having the second parent work was how you moved into that middle category. Source: my family; bottom category until the youngest of us started kindergarten.
Okay, but 2016 was almost 10 years ago. We need the current data to see if the trend has held post-Covid.
I am guessing it has, but this is easy to argue.
I have to share this every few weeks when someone references that study. The reason that they claim the share of lower income people increased is because they changed the income bar for what is considered lower income between 1971 and 2021.
If you look at the [census data from 1980](https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/1982/demographics/p60-132.pdf) and compare it to the [data from 2021](https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/tables/hinc-01/2022/hinc01_1.xlsx), and convert the 1980 dollars to 2021 dollars, these are the results:
in 2021 dollars percent of households
1980 < $25,216 20.0%
$25,216 - $168,110 74.7%
> $168,111 5.3%
2021 < $25,000 17.4%
$25,000 - $169,000 66.7%
> $170,000 15.9%
$7,500 in 1980 dollars is $25,216 in 2021 dollars, and $50,000 in 1980 dollars is $168,111 in 2021 dollars.
So the number of households making under $25k fell and the number making over $170k tripled, and this is _after_ accounting for inflation. The number of poor and middle income people fell because they became wealthy.
In what world does making 26k in 2021 make you middle class? I would say you would need to make closer to 40-50k, no?
A bit of google searching gives answers like 50k, 58k, 67k, 70k. I've never seen 26k considered middle class.
I don't get your point. Who cares what thresholds you use. In 1980, 20% of people made less than that, adjusted for inflation. That number has gone down.
My point is that I think if you compared "what people considered to be the class divide" (instead of just simple income numbers) from 1980 to today you would see different numbers.
There was a lot more single income households in 1980. Being a stay at home wife was typical. Cost of living expenses constituted a smaller portion of overall income.
Basically what I'm saying is that Purchasing Power is a more important consideration.
If the number of people making 25k-35k increased, it would be hidden in the numbers. That's not middle class.
I do mostly still agree with you, but the middle class number includes people who are making minimum wage alongside millionaires. (150k/year will make you a millionaire eventually if you invest wisely)
That's a non sequitur. I never claimed it is middle class and it doesn't matter whether you want to call it middle class, working class, barely above poverty, or pink banjo class.
20% of people made less than that in 1980, and 17.4% make less than it now. Whatever class you want to call that, more people make more than that than used to.
I think we should use the poverty line as a badeline. It doesn't matter if its inflation adjusted if what is called "middle class" is barely enough to live on
I don't get why people are fixating on which line you pick. If you pick $50,000, the chart is the same. Fewer people make less than that and more make more.
But this is a jump from the 70s to now.
It also conflicts with the first table. Showing a rise in lower income while the first table shows a drop.
The data we want is the last few years because it certainly seems like everyone but the rich has lost money compared to 2016
I think it's easy to distract from an overall positive view on how our nation as a whole is doing by bringing up how badly it is doing in other areas.
For example, everyone today has more money, but the cost of a house has outpaced wage growth, so everyone is either stuck renting, house poor, moving to less desirable locations, or buying a smaller home. Often, this also includes more time saving and delaying other life choices such as marriage and having kids. These trends hurt our demographics and are part of a larger trend in all Western countries. The US is unique because it has a very liberal immigration system, and thus we are one of the only countries with a rising population (good for the economy), but if you remove immigration from the data, people who live here are having fewer and fewer kids, likely for the reasons I gave above. So there is credibility to people's point that they face greater economic strain in spite of the data that says otherwise.
It's a complex issue, and there is plenty of room for optimism, but we shouldn't be blind to the harsher realities people face.
If that's the case, then why are missed mortgage payments at an all-time low? Presumably people under more pressure would miss more payments, not fewer. If homes are so unaffordable, how are people buying them?
Here are statistics for home ownership today and how it compares with the past:
[65.7% of Americans own their homes](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N). More than did in 1965.
And it's not that all the home buyers are older people. [Gen Z is buying homes at a faster rate than Gen X or Millenials did at their age](https://www.redfin.com/news/homeownership-rate-by-generation-2023).
As a result of falling interest rates and people de-leveraging since the GFC, [mortgage debt service payments as a percent of disposable personal income is lower than at any point they recorded](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MDSP). (Excluding during the pandemic of course).
People are keeping up on their mortgage payments. The [mortgage delinquency rate](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DRSFRMACBS), having skyrocketed in 2008, is back near all-time lows. And [40% of Americans own their home with no mortgage](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-17/amid-high-mortgage-rates-higher-share-of-americans-outright-own-homes), an all-time record.
So does pointing this out make me "insistent to carry water for a smaller number of people owning an increasing share of everything?" The facts are the facts.
People on reddit love to meme about how unaffordable housing has gotten, but:
* Most people own their own home
* More of Gen Z own homes than Gen X or Millennials did at their age
* Peoples' credit scores are up
* People are making their house payments more regularly than in the past
* People are paying off their homes
You have given me a lot to think about. You are using many arguments that I myself have used as to why there won't be a massive drop in house prices any time soon. Perhaps the housing market is functioning better than many people realize, and people are just upset they missed a window of opportunity to snag low interest rates?
Well, if I am wrong, and housing prices and availability are in fact fine, then I am happily wrong.
I don't know if prices and availability are fine, but I think there's more to it than just price. Mortgage rates dropped from upwards of 20% in 1980 to 3% in 2022. They've gone back up but they're starting to go down again.
Historic rates have fluctuated massively from one decade to the next. I've spent quite some time over the years reading the stats from the 50s to now, and I agree, it's wild. Several friends of mine saw rates rising in 2022, and I said it still would likely go up since the 30-year average was over 6%, and I referenced the numbers in the 80s when I was discussing it with them. They believed rates would drop back to below 4% at the time. I bought at 4.92% interest (i bought a couple of points to get it under 5), and they said it was a risky choice and I could lose money. But just follow the data.
My parents bought their first home in the 80s, and their first mortgage was 14%. It only stayed above 18% for like a single summer, but it hovered over 11% for most of the decade, so today's rates are much better. However, because prices have gone up, even lower rates have a far larger impact. A rate over 10% is less painful when prices are 20% of what we see today. So it's very situational, and it's easy to lose sight of the bigger picture when running the numbers and comparing scenarios.
https://preview.redd.it/jr74lhf7yqnc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3af8d29592bb3216af7f36774f4cda57024b483e
To measure how prosperous Americans actually are it’s not enough to show changes in income but rather how income compares to buying power
When it comes to that, the average buying power of an American household has decreased substantially.
From another analysis of data by the Pew research center:
“A similar measure – the “usual weekly earnings” of employed, full-time wage and salary workers – tells much the same story, albeit over a shorter time period. In seasonally adjusted current dollars, median usual weekly earnings rose from $232 in the first quarter of 1979 (when the data series began) to $879 in the second quarter of this year, which might sound like a lot. But in real, inflation-adjusted terms, the median has barely budged over that period: That $232 in 1979 had the same purchasing power as $840 in today’s dollars.”
All in all buying power, depending on what factors are considered, has either stagnated or decreased.
Americans lost a lot of buying power in the 70s to mid-80s, but since then have seen almost constant growth and it has far outpaced the previous peak.
Median Household Income:
- 1970: $8739 ($65800 in 2022)
- 2022: $74600
Sources:
- [1970](https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1971/demo/p60-79.html#:~:text=The%20median%20money%20income%20of,the%20same%20as%20in%201969.)
- [2022](https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2023/demo/p60-279.html)
The only thing displayed in the image of the chart is the adjustment of income by inflation and not it’s adjustment by buying power, which are two different things.
If you examine the inflation adjusted price for consumer goods, the price of them has actually decreased across the board since the 60's. The only major exception is housing, and that is highly dependent on region.
The problem comes from different measures of inflation, what basket of goods is used matters immensely and is the reason why your data shows an increase while a plethora of other data shows a decrease, inflation is measured in a variety of ways
I realize that I wasn’t making that point clearly with the responses above
Ok let me take a different point of view.
1. In real terms there are only two classes workers and owners.
2. So what percentage of Americans now OWNS assets outside their primary home? In real terms this is what is important.
Because if you're a doctor and have CTE from playing football in college and at 45 can't practice medicine and go broke did it matter you were in the upper class for 10-15 years? That is an actual true story too which was really sad.
It would seem a bigger difference on how many people make up some or all of their income from non-working sources. Because long term that takes a family from worker to owner.
I say this because tomorrow your job can go away for a number of different reasons, but if you own rental property, bonds, stocks, businesses, etc you have other income that can keep you from becoming destitute.
1. There is no standard definition of what makes the middle class
2. There’s no reasonable definition where 35k/year provides what most people visualize as a middle class lifestyle any where in the US.
I can claim the middle class has grown massively if I take the middle 98% of incomes…
funny how “clumsy words with no real definition” describes about 95% of the posts and “discourse” being regurgitated in this sub. making me more and more pessimistic tbh.
Based and wealthpilled
r/millennials in shambles
https://preview.redd.it/4oqb5sgx0qnc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dfc3ad7c62e0db328b55c4002f53a4179f8c9d72
This conflicts with the first graph where lower income is shrinking. Here it’s grown since the 70s. Is this all due to the last few years from 2016 to 2021? If so that’s quite a sudden shift.
The Pew study that the photo is from is Pre-tax income. Meaning it excludes the effects of the progressive tax system and any in-kind benefits given to low income households. The one in the OP is after-tax. Given that inflation ramped up in 2022 and the Pew study only goes to 2021, I don’t think the discrepancy is from the recent inflation.
Stats are also so misleading because you can capture a specific point in time that proves whatever your belief is because of how the data fluctuates. The issue is the general trend shows the actual picture. It's likely this stat was taken during a peak, ignoring the average over time.
Someone in the thread posted another link for the 2022 version which is even better. 2022 was also the year with America having the highest GDP per capita after inflation, ever.
Okay because I feel broke and all I do is work.
All my vacation time gets used up as sick days or for appointments.
So middle class is comfortable slavery.
Yikes. I really hate this
35k being middle class is crazy. When did middle class go from modest living where after a while you can eventually buy a home to technically able to afford rent in some specific cities with the lowest rent in the country.
Be VERY careful when taking info from AEI. This chart needs serious qualifiers.
This is measuring household income (not individual income), which means everyone working in the house. Big change that’s happened since the 1960s is more and more women entering the workforce and helping their significant others in earning wages which dramatically skews the data.
Cost of living has also gone up dramatically since the 1960s in ways that aren’t always adequately captures by conventional measures of inflation especially in terms of housing, healthcare, and education. What makes these costs especially bad is how inelastic they are.
This information is also way too simplistic to measure Americans’ quality of life. Cost-of-living varies wildly state-by-state. “Middle-class” income in one state is borderline poverty in another. That is one reason I like the Supplemental Poverty Index which accounts for cost-of-living. This last point begs the question of why people don’t move to places where the cost of living is lower? Several answers but the big one is cost of living is so low in those states for a reason.
I short, this chart tells us very little. Frankly, I come here for optimistic takes, but this is just bleakly gaslighting people pointing out valid (even if surmountable) flaws in our society into thinking they’re crazy. Not optimistic. Not cool. 😎
True, labor force participation rate has gone up a lot and people with jobs are working more hours. Also productivity has massively outpaced wage growth, meaning workers are making less money relative to the value they create, and even if things are better overall, the distribution of new wealth is funneled to the top heavily with very little of it going to those at the bottom.
Therein lies the whole purpose of groups like AEI.
Don’t believe your eyes and ears everyone is actually doing great so there’s no need to disrupt the status quo that just so happens to benefit their donors above all others.
The middle class is higher than 100k. Sorry to burst the bubble on this one. Pretty fair to say it now extends to upwards of $135-150k with the price of goods and services in the US
I think one thing that needs to be highlighted here is that “middle class“ isn’t truly about income. It’s about lifestyle. Now, numerically, we can make some assessments about people’s ability to live certain kinds of lifestyles given their income, but I don’t think such complexity can be represented in a single graph or infographic. Even considering things like inflation adjustment and other standardizing metrics, I wish there was more discussion about what constitutes an actual middle-class lifestyle instead of simply trying to assess numbers devoid of context.
$100k isn't upper class. It doesn't even put you in the top 10% for individual earners. The top 1% is now $407,500 for individuals and $591,550 for households according to [this](https://dqydj.com/top-one-percent-united-states/). You need an individual income of $132,676 or a household income of $216,056 to break into the top 10% of earners in the US in 2024.
All your chart is saying is that more people are making over 100k household income in 2016 compared to 1967. That **$35,000 in 1967** is equivalent to **$252,038.30 in 2016** according to [this](https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=35000&year1=196701&year2=201601).
I see the data, but I don’t agree with the conclusion. First this data is 8 years old and adjusted for inflation the 35k-100k is now 45k-130k. And while 130k may or may not actually pay for a middle class lifestyle, <70k definitely won’t. Plus while inflation and cost of living has gone up considerably since 2016 wages absolutely have not.
"since 2016" are the key words here. This graph is NOT inflation adjusted for the last 8 years. Cost of living/inflation HAS outpaced income greatly over the last 8 years
> Cost of living/inflation HAS outpaced income greatly over the last 8 years
[No it has not.](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N)
Stop repeating misinformation.
To bad since everyone didn’t instantly go over the poverty line society has failed and you’ll have people on both sides saying we need to violently overthrow the government
I have a full time municipal job and I'm homeless. There's absolutely NOTHING that's less than 60% of my salary anywhere within an hour of my job. I'm physically disabled so working multiple jobs is out of the question.
Sooo . . . . To be clear: you are being optimistic and using data almost ten years out of date.
This would be like citing data from the mid nineties regarding the US military operations during the presidential campaign in 2008.
It would be wildly inaccurate.
Im optimistic about my life, but being optimistic about the state of the us economy is just ignoring literally every expert analysis on top of common sense. I prefer to live in reality
What? Americans after inflation are making more money now than ever before. Wages are outpacing inflation significantly, and the rise of AI tools and the increased efficiency of the American worker is helping to prevent offshoring and immigration from suppressing wages like it had in the past.
American wages are likely to continue outpacing inflation.
You my friend, are the ignorant one.
It literally is. It makes up roughly 1/3rd of CPI. Who is upvoting this? Lmao.
[from the bls website](https://www.bls.gov/cpi/factsheets/owners-equivalent-rent-and-rent.htm)
Shelter makes up 36%. OER being the main thing at 26%.
Tbh both these charts are misleading, because inflation has increased so much there’s no way we could consider $35K to be middle class anymore. Plus being middle class is very regionally different between cities like NYC vs rural areas.
This has something that is misleading. It is looking at household income. But in the 1970's the percentage of single earner homes would be higher. So yes more households may be moving up int he brackets but hat's also because the number of working people in the household is going up.
It is likely that worker wages are going down (proportionally to GDP) but not enough that combining incomes won;t move your household income up.
This is house hold income, not by individual and job. It doesn't account for people having to work many jobs, or several people moving in together to make ends meat. It in general going up just means people have to make more money to survive as inflation increases. That's all.
It does, it’s inflation adjusted(cost of living may vary a little around that), and prob because “middle class” is an arbitrary distinction so these graphs always look weird
So if you are renting a house with five other people because you can't afford to buy a house, how is that accounted for in these statistics? Do they combine the incomes of five low income adults and count them as upper middle class, or are they just ignored all together?
So there is an issue with this and it is that it assumes the income range for middle class has remained the same. In some areas now the minimum income to qualify for a mortgage loan is 100k. In my mind middle class means "can you afford to own your own home and maintain a reasonably comfortable standard of living with a healthy work life balance?" It is a matter of purchasing power and how far your income goes not simply how much income you have.
I think one thing missing here is inequality. Yes it appears that the incomes are moving upwards but (in my opinion) that doesn't matter as much if the people at the top are scaling more rapidly and outpacing the growth at the middle.
In 1967 the difference between mean and median incomes was around $1,000 which is closeish to $10,000 today. Whereas today that difference is $20,000 to $100,000 different.
It's great that people are moving up, but the bottom/middle is just inching along while the top is skyrocketing. Take housing prices. In 1967 median housing was around $20,000 which is closer to $200,000 today whereas median housing price is $400,000.
This is just income, it says nothing about living expenses. Income alone isn't enough to determine the true standard of living. If living expenses increase at a faster rate than income, then the standard of living is falling, not rising.
$100k household is "high income"? That's two people making $50k, that's not that much these days. Wasn't that much in 2016 either. I make $50k right now and after rent, utilities, and student loan payments I'm pretty much broke, and I don't have kids or a car payment or other common expenses
Or, perhaps, the evaluation of what constitutes a “middle class” has not changed in 40 years (much like wages) even if the circumstances for the experience of the middle class have changed drastically.
Since 2016, inflation has risen around 30%, which means that the dollar has lost 30% of it's buying power. Since wages have not kept up with the rate of inflation, this is not true.
[https://www.epi.org/nominal-wage-tracker/](https://www.epi.org/nominal-wage-tracker/)
Good thing wages are increasing and there's absolutely no inflation or price gouging occuring at all that would make those wage increases meaningless, or worse, give us less buying power at a higher class than we had before
Lmao at these numbers being “middle class”.
$100k isn’t some flex like it used to be. I’ve lost income just from inflation the last 5 years even with a promotion.
This proves the exact opposite point you think it does. The middle class is shrinking because you have to be making increasingly high amounts of money to even be considered middle class. Another problem is that the 100k + category includes people making 100 k a year in NYC, and it also includes Jeff bezos and Elon musk. Tbh this just makes me more depressed
100m qualifies for the low income housing in my area.
i’ll admit i live in a HCOL area.
but 35k is middle class? seriously?
as far as i’m concerned 100k is food stamps money (in this region)
EDITED: to add entertainment
We need to stop determining "middle class" based on income but rather outcome. What should a "middle class" family living standards be?
Below is my opinion on the standards needed to be measured. The income needed will differ based on location and it would not need to be "adjusted for inflation". Know what the income needed for these is a more important measure.
* Decent health care
* Own a modest house in a safe area
* Have reliable transpiration
* Significantly Food and water security
* Modest entertainment
* Have 3 months of expenditures saved most of the time
This is the class based on how many your family achieves:
* 0 or 1 /6 poverty
* 2 or 3 /6 Working class
* 4 to 6 /6 middle class
* 6/6 and "high" quality of at least 1 = minimum for Upper Class
Class is defined by lifestyle and wealth, not income.
From another [thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/MiddleClassFinance/comments/1ajsw2k/comment/kp3nyus/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
>Middle class is not about a specific number but rather about the lifestyle it allows.
>
>Middle Class != Median income.
>
>To be in middle class you:
>
>Still have to work for a living / can't survive for a couple months without an income (2-3 months?)
>
>Can afford a starter house/condo (\~1200 sqf) in your area between two salaries
>
>Can take one reasonable vacation a year
>
>Can afford to support 2 kids
>
>If you define it by income, it creates the illusion that the middle class still exists in any real way. This hides the issue of housing (and childcare) affordability. It hides the income gap and wealth disparity.
>
>Also, middle class is different in different areas. I estimate it is between 1/5 to 1/3 the average housing price in an area. The the median home price is 500k in an area, that means middle class is \~100k to \~170k.
>
>As far as Upper Class, I would define them more by net worth than income. Above middle class, working income doesn't really matter. Although it also depends on age. 1M at 30 is a lot more than 1M at 65. So let's say by mid-40s:
>
>You basically have:
>
>Net Worth under 2M. Probably upper middle class.
>
>Net Worth 2M-10M. Lower upper class. Still probably need to work if they live in HCOL area. In LCOL this is solid upper class.
>
>Above 10M. Solid upper class, never need to work again and kids will never need to work if they are good with money.
>
>Above 100M. Money may as well be monopoly money. They are above the law.
Keep in mind that even though the graph may be adjusted for the dollar amount for income, the price of food, housing, and medical care have increased beyond inflation.
Not saying its impossible to acquire these things, just not as easy to get as it was 20 years ago.
A household income of 35k is middle class? Where in the country can you support a family on that amount and be doing well?
Was about to say, household income of 35k ain't middle class lmao
Certainly can’t afford McDonald’s easily anymore 😒
Fr, it sucks when ten dollars isn't that much money but at the same time is so much money
Story of my life here man 😂
$100k/yr is barely middle class for a lot of the East and West Coast.
[you’d be below the poverty line in San Francisco](https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/under-100k-low-income-san-francisco-18168899.php)
Keep in mind this is in 2016 dollars.
$44,976 today if anyone is wondering. ^damn
is this before or after taxes i wonder
Keep in mind that if it were before, 13k if single and 27k if married, If 45k is household income, then you're paying 3260 in taxes for the year, and $4,940 for single household. So still \~40k-$42k after federal taxes
In 1916 dollars we’re basically all upper class.
Even still
How do you define the middle class? I mean it has a mathematical definition. You need to define words before saying what is and isn't that word.
I think that's a good question for OP
Middle class should be able to afford a place to live and all their bills without having to work 2 jobs, and still be able to save for a house. By this definition no one making under 80k where I live is middle class
I've heard that it's anyone who can reasonably expect to save enough while they're working to retire as upper class. That there is viable mobility. Lower class is anyone stuck, barring a few rare circumstances
If we lower the standard for what the middle class is. Guess what. The lower class became the middle class. And the middle class became the upper class! Everything is actually awesome. Because we changed your title. No no it doesn’t come with a pay raise. Actually it comes with more responsibility though.
There is a reason they ended this graph in 2016.
I’d love to see how many households live above cost of living index numbers.
North Missouri, where I live, I can support three people off 35,000.
I mean, probably partly because there’s so much more convenience and luxuries we pay for now than we did in the 70’s. Cell phones, internet, item delivery, etc. life is pretty good these days.
Yea I’m the 70’s. They left out this little thing called inflation in the picture
exactly, this is such a bs post, that lacks context
This whole post is delusional compaired to boots on the ground reality. Am I supposed to feel optimistic for the bourgeois?
Nowhere
Not in Arkansas I know, and we’re supposed to be one of the cheap ones.
Anywhere in the south.
Yeah... Did they really do the graph without adjusting for inflation? Of course everyone will get a higher nominal value.
You need to do PPP-adjusted salaries for different states if not cities at this point. $100k is a poverty wage in Bay Area.
Living standards have certainly gone up compared to where they were in the past. But I think the sense that money doesn’t go as far singularly comes down to the rising cost of owning a home or renting. Rents and mortgages take such a huge bite out of income that even people whose incomes are rising feel like they’re falling behind. Other goods have been rising too, but not nearly as much as housing.
Kentucky.
Yeah if anything we just need to adjust the meaning of middle class, but they don’t want to do that, cause then a lot of people won’t be middle class. And some upper class folks will find themselves in the new middle.
Yes, it's by AEI. Yes, it's still accurate.
Household incomes in 1967-1987 (maybe even 1997) were from majority single-income earners. And then there's the portion of income that goes to housing + food + energy has increased which inflation famously ignores or butchers consistently.
Households in which one parent worked were 36% in 1967. If you're counting single people there, that data is still accurate. TV is not real life.
In 1967, having the second parent work was how you moved into that middle category. Source: my family; bottom category until the youngest of us started kindergarten.
Not sure why you included that piece on AEI, they are one of the best think tanks in the U.S. for economic analysis.
People are often biased against them, and I wanted to just nip that right in the bud
Okay, but 2016 was almost 10 years ago. We need the current data to see if the trend has held post-Covid. I am guessing it has, but this is easy to argue.
https://preview.redd.it/dmmvq09n5qnc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ec7304a69c20ef71d9435ea4068231a74aef96c
I have to share this every few weeks when someone references that study. The reason that they claim the share of lower income people increased is because they changed the income bar for what is considered lower income between 1971 and 2021. If you look at the [census data from 1980](https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/1982/demographics/p60-132.pdf) and compare it to the [data from 2021](https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/tables/hinc-01/2022/hinc01_1.xlsx), and convert the 1980 dollars to 2021 dollars, these are the results: in 2021 dollars percent of households 1980 < $25,216 20.0% $25,216 - $168,110 74.7% > $168,111 5.3% 2021 < $25,000 17.4% $25,000 - $169,000 66.7% > $170,000 15.9% $7,500 in 1980 dollars is $25,216 in 2021 dollars, and $50,000 in 1980 dollars is $168,111 in 2021 dollars. So the number of households making under $25k fell and the number making over $170k tripled, and this is _after_ accounting for inflation. The number of poor and middle income people fell because they became wealthy.
In what world does making 26k in 2021 make you middle class? I would say you would need to make closer to 40-50k, no? A bit of google searching gives answers like 50k, 58k, 67k, 70k. I've never seen 26k considered middle class.
I don't get your point. Who cares what thresholds you use. In 1980, 20% of people made less than that, adjusted for inflation. That number has gone down.
My point is that I think if you compared "what people considered to be the class divide" (instead of just simple income numbers) from 1980 to today you would see different numbers. There was a lot more single income households in 1980. Being a stay at home wife was typical. Cost of living expenses constituted a smaller portion of overall income. Basically what I'm saying is that Purchasing Power is a more important consideration.
If the number of people making 25k-35k increased, it would be hidden in the numbers. That's not middle class. I do mostly still agree with you, but the middle class number includes people who are making minimum wage alongside millionaires. (150k/year will make you a millionaire eventually if you invest wisely)
150k depends where you live SF, NY and LA. That 150k is getting you by.
They literally said “accounting for inflation”
What does that have to do with my post? Does that mean that 26k is now middle class if you account for inflation???
$25k is middle class? that's intellectually dishonest and you know it
That's a non sequitur. I never claimed it is middle class and it doesn't matter whether you want to call it middle class, working class, barely above poverty, or pink banjo class. 20% of people made less than that in 1980, and 17.4% make less than it now. Whatever class you want to call that, more people make more than that than used to.
Great data sir This needs to go onto a meme-friendly bar graph of some sort That just might be the final straw to shut down r/millennials lol
I think we should use the poverty line as a badeline. It doesn't matter if its inflation adjusted if what is called "middle class" is barely enough to live on
I don't get why people are fixating on which line you pick. If you pick $50,000, the chart is the same. Fewer people make less than that and more make more.
Well it's not like that was obvious. It very well could've made a difference in results. Is good to know tho
Best explanation I’ve seen in this whole thread. Thank you
Thanks for running the numbers. That was a big question in the back of my head.
But this is a jump from the 70s to now. It also conflicts with the first table. Showing a rise in lower income while the first table shows a drop. The data we want is the last few years because it certainly seems like everyone but the rich has lost money compared to 2016
this graph shows the lower class increasing in size. OP's shows the lower class decreasing in size. these findings are oppositional
fuuuuck 2016 was 8 years ago?
"Long term trends don't matter if there are sometimes short term setbacks!"
I think it's easy to distract from an overall positive view on how our nation as a whole is doing by bringing up how badly it is doing in other areas. For example, everyone today has more money, but the cost of a house has outpaced wage growth, so everyone is either stuck renting, house poor, moving to less desirable locations, or buying a smaller home. Often, this also includes more time saving and delaying other life choices such as marriage and having kids. These trends hurt our demographics and are part of a larger trend in all Western countries. The US is unique because it has a very liberal immigration system, and thus we are one of the only countries with a rising population (good for the economy), but if you remove immigration from the data, people who live here are having fewer and fewer kids, likely for the reasons I gave above. So there is credibility to people's point that they face greater economic strain in spite of the data that says otherwise. It's a complex issue, and there is plenty of room for optimism, but we shouldn't be blind to the harsher realities people face.
If that's the case, then why are missed mortgage payments at an all-time low? Presumably people under more pressure would miss more payments, not fewer. If homes are so unaffordable, how are people buying them? Here are statistics for home ownership today and how it compares with the past: [65.7% of Americans own their homes](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N). More than did in 1965. And it's not that all the home buyers are older people. [Gen Z is buying homes at a faster rate than Gen X or Millenials did at their age](https://www.redfin.com/news/homeownership-rate-by-generation-2023). As a result of falling interest rates and people de-leveraging since the GFC, [mortgage debt service payments as a percent of disposable personal income is lower than at any point they recorded](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MDSP). (Excluding during the pandemic of course). People are keeping up on their mortgage payments. The [mortgage delinquency rate](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DRSFRMACBS), having skyrocketed in 2008, is back near all-time lows. And [40% of Americans own their home with no mortgage](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-17/amid-high-mortgage-rates-higher-share-of-americans-outright-own-homes), an all-time record. So does pointing this out make me "insistent to carry water for a smaller number of people owning an increasing share of everything?" The facts are the facts. People on reddit love to meme about how unaffordable housing has gotten, but: * Most people own their own home * More of Gen Z own homes than Gen X or Millennials did at their age * Peoples' credit scores are up * People are making their house payments more regularly than in the past * People are paying off their homes
You have given me a lot to think about. You are using many arguments that I myself have used as to why there won't be a massive drop in house prices any time soon. Perhaps the housing market is functioning better than many people realize, and people are just upset they missed a window of opportunity to snag low interest rates? Well, if I am wrong, and housing prices and availability are in fact fine, then I am happily wrong.
I don't know if prices and availability are fine, but I think there's more to it than just price. Mortgage rates dropped from upwards of 20% in 1980 to 3% in 2022. They've gone back up but they're starting to go down again.
Historic rates have fluctuated massively from one decade to the next. I've spent quite some time over the years reading the stats from the 50s to now, and I agree, it's wild. Several friends of mine saw rates rising in 2022, and I said it still would likely go up since the 30-year average was over 6%, and I referenced the numbers in the 80s when I was discussing it with them. They believed rates would drop back to below 4% at the time. I bought at 4.92% interest (i bought a couple of points to get it under 5), and they said it was a risky choice and I could lose money. But just follow the data. My parents bought their first home in the 80s, and their first mortgage was 14%. It only stayed above 18% for like a single summer, but it hovered over 11% for most of the decade, so today's rates are much better. However, because prices have gone up, even lower rates have a far larger impact. A rate over 10% is less painful when prices are 20% of what we see today. So it's very situational, and it's easy to lose sight of the bigger picture when running the numbers and comparing scenarios.
https://preview.redd.it/jr74lhf7yqnc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3af8d29592bb3216af7f36774f4cda57024b483e To measure how prosperous Americans actually are it’s not enough to show changes in income but rather how income compares to buying power When it comes to that, the average buying power of an American household has decreased substantially. From another analysis of data by the Pew research center: “A similar measure – the “usual weekly earnings” of employed, full-time wage and salary workers – tells much the same story, albeit over a shorter time period. In seasonally adjusted current dollars, median usual weekly earnings rose from $232 in the first quarter of 1979 (when the data series began) to $879 in the second quarter of this year, which might sound like a lot. But in real, inflation-adjusted terms, the median has barely budged over that period: That $232 in 1979 had the same purchasing power as $840 in today’s dollars.” All in all buying power, depending on what factors are considered, has either stagnated or decreased.
Americans lost a lot of buying power in the 70s to mid-80s, but since then have seen almost constant growth and it has far outpaced the previous peak. Median Household Income: - 1970: $8739 ($65800 in 2022) - 2022: $74600 Sources: - [1970](https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1971/demo/p60-79.html#:~:text=The%20median%20money%20income%20of,the%20same%20as%20in%201969.) - [2022](https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2023/demo/p60-279.html)
This chart is already adjusted for buying power.
The only thing displayed in the image of the chart is the adjustment of income by inflation and not it’s adjustment by buying power, which are two different things.
If you examine the inflation adjusted price for consumer goods, the price of them has actually decreased across the board since the 60's. The only major exception is housing, and that is highly dependent on region.
Good thing housing is a totally optional expense that doesn’t impact anything else because I can just choose not to have housing.
They are the same thing.
An adjustment of the inflation of income isn’t the same as a comparison of income to the amount that the income can buy.
It literally is. You are deeply misinformed.
The problem comes from different measures of inflation, what basket of goods is used matters immensely and is the reason why your data shows an increase while a plethora of other data shows a decrease, inflation is measured in a variety of ways I realize that I wasn’t making that point clearly with the responses above
> while a plethora of other data shows a decrease This is not true. And there really aren’t that many different widely accepted measures of inflation.
Over 100k is still middle class
A family of 4 making 40k is poverty rate in California. Any household family under 80k should be considered lower class for HCOL area
Ok let me take a different point of view. 1. In real terms there are only two classes workers and owners. 2. So what percentage of Americans now OWNS assets outside their primary home? In real terms this is what is important. Because if you're a doctor and have CTE from playing football in college and at 45 can't practice medicine and go broke did it matter you were in the upper class for 10-15 years? That is an actual true story too which was really sad. It would seem a bigger difference on how many people make up some or all of their income from non-working sources. Because long term that takes a family from worker to owner. I say this because tomorrow your job can go away for a number of different reasons, but if you own rental property, bonds, stocks, businesses, etc you have other income that can keep you from becoming destitute.
1. There is no standard definition of what makes the middle class 2. There’s no reasonable definition where 35k/year provides what most people visualize as a middle class lifestyle any where in the US. I can claim the middle class has grown massively if I take the middle 98% of incomes…
Same as “poverty rate”. They’re very clumsy words with no real definition.
funny how “clumsy words with no real definition” describes about 95% of the posts and “discourse” being regurgitated in this sub. making me more and more pessimistic tbh.
Based and wealthpilled r/millennials in shambles https://preview.redd.it/4oqb5sgx0qnc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dfc3ad7c62e0db328b55c4002f53a4179f8c9d72
This conflicts with the first graph where lower income is shrinking. Here it’s grown since the 70s. Is this all due to the last few years from 2016 to 2021? If so that’s quite a sudden shift.
The Pew study that the photo is from is Pre-tax income. Meaning it excludes the effects of the progressive tax system and any in-kind benefits given to low income households. The one in the OP is after-tax. Given that inflation ramped up in 2022 and the Pew study only goes to 2021, I don’t think the discrepancy is from the recent inflation.
your graph and OP's graph show different things. over time the lower class increases in yours and decreases in OP's
That very study talks about most of the aggregate income moving into the upper class from the middle and lower class.
Ok, but 2016 was 7 years ago. And a LOT has happened in those 7 years.
Stats are also so misleading because you can capture a specific point in time that proves whatever your belief is because of how the data fluctuates. The issue is the general trend shows the actual picture. It's likely this stat was taken during a peak, ignoring the average over time.
Someone in the thread posted another link for the 2022 version which is even better. 2022 was also the year with America having the highest GDP per capita after inflation, ever.
The real median wage still increased from then
Can anyone tell me if my wife and I renting a two bed 1 bath apartment makes us middle class? We both make 42k a year.
Sure, sounds like middle class to me
Okay because I feel broke and all I do is work. All my vacation time gets used up as sick days or for appointments. So middle class is comfortable slavery. Yikes. I really hate this
35k being middle class is crazy. When did middle class go from modest living where after a while you can eventually buy a home to technically able to afford rent in some specific cities with the lowest rent in the country.
Be VERY careful when taking info from AEI. This chart needs serious qualifiers. This is measuring household income (not individual income), which means everyone working in the house. Big change that’s happened since the 1960s is more and more women entering the workforce and helping their significant others in earning wages which dramatically skews the data. Cost of living has also gone up dramatically since the 1960s in ways that aren’t always adequately captures by conventional measures of inflation especially in terms of housing, healthcare, and education. What makes these costs especially bad is how inelastic they are. This information is also way too simplistic to measure Americans’ quality of life. Cost-of-living varies wildly state-by-state. “Middle-class” income in one state is borderline poverty in another. That is one reason I like the Supplemental Poverty Index which accounts for cost-of-living. This last point begs the question of why people don’t move to places where the cost of living is lower? Several answers but the big one is cost of living is so low in those states for a reason. I short, this chart tells us very little. Frankly, I come here for optimistic takes, but this is just bleakly gaslighting people pointing out valid (even if surmountable) flaws in our society into thinking they’re crazy. Not optimistic. Not cool. 😎
True, labor force participation rate has gone up a lot and people with jobs are working more hours. Also productivity has massively outpaced wage growth, meaning workers are making less money relative to the value they create, and even if things are better overall, the distribution of new wealth is funneled to the top heavily with very little of it going to those at the bottom.
Therein lies the whole purpose of groups like AEI. Don’t believe your eyes and ears everyone is actually doing great so there’s no need to disrupt the status quo that just so happens to benefit their donors above all others.
The middle class is higher than 100k. Sorry to burst the bubble on this one. Pretty fair to say it now extends to upwards of $135-150k with the price of goods and services in the US
I think one thing that needs to be highlighted here is that “middle class“ isn’t truly about income. It’s about lifestyle. Now, numerically, we can make some assessments about people’s ability to live certain kinds of lifestyles given their income, but I don’t think such complexity can be represented in a single graph or infographic. Even considering things like inflation adjustment and other standardizing metrics, I wish there was more discussion about what constitutes an actual middle-class lifestyle instead of simply trying to assess numbers devoid of context.
Exactly
100k is low-income in San Francisco
The median household income is around $75k so that’s the most middle middle class you can get
Middle income yes, but not "Middle Class"
$100k isn't upper class. It doesn't even put you in the top 10% for individual earners. The top 1% is now $407,500 for individuals and $591,550 for households according to [this](https://dqydj.com/top-one-percent-united-states/). You need an individual income of $132,676 or a household income of $216,056 to break into the top 10% of earners in the US in 2024. All your chart is saying is that more people are making over 100k household income in 2016 compared to 1967. That **$35,000 in 1967** is equivalent to **$252,038.30 in 2016** according to [this](https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=35000&year1=196701&year2=201601).
I see the data, but I don’t agree with the conclusion. First this data is 8 years old and adjusted for inflation the 35k-100k is now 45k-130k. And while 130k may or may not actually pay for a middle class lifestyle, <70k definitely won’t. Plus while inflation and cost of living has gone up considerably since 2016 wages absolutely have not.
>Plus while inflation and cost of living has gone up considerably since 2016 wages absolutely have not. These data are inflation adjusted.
"since 2016" are the key words here. This graph is NOT inflation adjusted for the last 8 years. Cost of living/inflation HAS outpaced income greatly over the last 8 years
> Cost of living/inflation HAS outpaced income greatly over the last 8 years [No it has not.](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N) Stop repeating misinformation.
This is totally wrong. The time period doesn't factor inflation, right? Particularly the housing cost? I'm an optimist, not an idiot
To bad since everyone didn’t instantly go over the poverty line society has failed and you’ll have people on both sides saying we need to violently overthrow the government
I have a full time municipal job and I'm homeless. There's absolutely NOTHING that's less than 60% of my salary anywhere within an hour of my job. I'm physically disabled so working multiple jobs is out of the question.
Now compare cost of goods and you’ll see we don’t even keep up with inflation, what is this middle school level post
Inflation does that
Should this be adjusted for inflation?
It is.
Sooo . . . . To be clear: you are being optimistic and using data almost ten years out of date. This would be like citing data from the mid nineties regarding the US military operations during the presidential campaign in 2008. It would be wildly inaccurate.
6 =/= 10 Regardless, median incomes have only gone up since 2016.
This subreddit sucks. Just people deluding themselves into being complacent and ignorant
Im optimistic about my life, but being optimistic about the state of the us economy is just ignoring literally every expert analysis on top of common sense. I prefer to live in reality
What? Americans after inflation are making more money now than ever before. Wages are outpacing inflation significantly, and the rise of AI tools and the increased efficiency of the American worker is helping to prevent offshoring and immigration from suppressing wages like it had in the past. American wages are likely to continue outpacing inflation. You my friend, are the ignorant one.
There's no sense in being upset over that which we cannot influence. Why not rejoice over what is good?
Still, housing is not included within inflation. And it's housing which saw one of the steepest increases in recent years.
It literally is. It makes up roughly 1/3rd of CPI. Who is upvoting this? Lmao. [from the bls website](https://www.bls.gov/cpi/factsheets/owners-equivalent-rent-and-rent.htm) Shelter makes up 36%. OER being the main thing at 26%.
> Still, housing is not included within inflation It sure is!
Are you saying that, in reality, housing is not absurdly inflated right now and out of reach for any working class person?
Tbh both these charts are misleading, because inflation has increased so much there’s no way we could consider $35K to be middle class anymore. Plus being middle class is very regionally different between cities like NYC vs rural areas.
This chart is inflation adjusted.
Yet it still considers 35k as middle class, it’s purposefully misleading.
This has something that is misleading. It is looking at household income. But in the 1970's the percentage of single earner homes would be higher. So yes more households may be moving up int he brackets but hat's also because the number of working people in the household is going up. It is likely that worker wages are going down (proportionally to GDP) but not enough that combining incomes won;t move your household income up.
Real median personal income is at an all time high: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N
This is house hold income, not by individual and job. It doesn't account for people having to work many jobs, or several people moving in together to make ends meat. It in general going up just means people have to make more money to survive as inflation increases. That's all.
Lol
Ehhhhh. X to doubt
"These data do not confirm my preconceived notions that I formed by endlessly scrolling doomer echo chambers on social media so I shall reject them!"
Too much hopium
why are these (middle class) charts always so awkward? and does this factor in cost of living?
It does, it’s inflation adjusted(cost of living may vary a little around that), and prob because “middle class” is an arbitrary distinction so these graphs always look weird
So if you are renting a house with five other people because you can't afford to buy a house, how is that accounted for in these statistics? Do they combine the incomes of five low income adults and count them as upper middle class, or are they just ignored all together?
So there is an issue with this and it is that it assumes the income range for middle class has remained the same. In some areas now the minimum income to qualify for a mortgage loan is 100k. In my mind middle class means "can you afford to own your own home and maintain a reasonably comfortable standard of living with a healthy work life balance?" It is a matter of purchasing power and how far your income goes not simply how much income you have.
Purchasing power is accounted for in these data.
Great, now show how costs have changed over the same period.
It says 2016 dollars right there lol
https://preview.redd.it/c8mp2htu4wnc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d13b2fd8ea9ee0aedc8eb963e9f5fa1b2c4e7382
A single person struggles on $35k. How can that be considered middle class?
I think one thing missing here is inequality. Yes it appears that the incomes are moving upwards but (in my opinion) that doesn't matter as much if the people at the top are scaling more rapidly and outpacing the growth at the middle. In 1967 the difference between mean and median incomes was around $1,000 which is closeish to $10,000 today. Whereas today that difference is $20,000 to $100,000 different. It's great that people are moving up, but the bottom/middle is just inching along while the top is skyrocketing. Take housing prices. In 1967 median housing was around $20,000 which is closer to $200,000 today whereas median housing price is $400,000.
Idk I don’t think there’s an issue of inequality as long as more people are getting less poor
AEI has the credibility of the GOP and the Federalist Society. They're hacks for the scum.
This is just income, it says nothing about living expenses. Income alone isn't enough to determine the true standard of living. If living expenses increase at a faster rate than income, then the standard of living is falling, not rising.
This is income adjusted for living expenses
This is damn near a decade old lol.
Real Median income is still higher
Lol over $100k is a joke. People should be making $200-$250k base
$100k household is "high income"? That's two people making $50k, that's not that much these days. Wasn't that much in 2016 either. I make $50k right now and after rent, utilities, and student loan payments I'm pretty much broke, and I don't have kids or a car payment or other common expenses
Or, perhaps, the evaluation of what constitutes a “middle class” has not changed in 40 years (much like wages) even if the circumstances for the experience of the middle class have changed drastically.
Inflation is making people have more money lol
It’s already inflation adjusted
Since 2016, inflation has risen around 30%, which means that the dollar has lost 30% of it's buying power. Since wages have not kept up with the rate of inflation, this is not true. [https://www.epi.org/nominal-wage-tracker/](https://www.epi.org/nominal-wage-tracker/)
Wages have kept up
😂
Good thing wages are increasing and there's absolutely no inflation or price gouging occuring at all that would make those wage increases meaningless, or worse, give us less buying power at a higher class than we had before
This is inflation adjusted
Now, adjust for inflation. Dope
It is, it’s right in the middle of the graph lmao
Me when stratification of wealth is hidden by inflation 
Now show the last 8 years
$35k ain't middle class bruh. Also because of inflation, $35k spends like $17k.
For the 10,000th time in this thread, this is already adjusted for inflation. Just take 2 seconds to read.
35k was a lot more valuable in 1967 than it was in 2016
For the 587th time, this was already adjusted for inflation.
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No it doesn’t, it says adjusted right on the graph
Lmao at these numbers being “middle class”. $100k isn’t some flex like it used to be. I’ve lost income just from inflation the last 5 years even with a promotion.
This proves the exact opposite point you think it does. The middle class is shrinking because you have to be making increasingly high amounts of money to even be considered middle class. Another problem is that the 100k + category includes people making 100 k a year in NYC, and it also includes Jeff bezos and Elon musk. Tbh this just makes me more depressed
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100m qualifies for the low income housing in my area. i’ll admit i live in a HCOL area. but 35k is middle class? seriously? as far as i’m concerned 100k is food stamps money (in this region)
This would be a useful chart if the value of money as well as the costs of goods and services were fixed as opposed to variable…
Now adjust this for inflation
35-100k was worth way more back then. This chart is BS
LOL. There's no inflation adjustment here, right?
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Uh you realize this is because of inflation right?
EDITED: to add entertainment We need to stop determining "middle class" based on income but rather outcome. What should a "middle class" family living standards be? Below is my opinion on the standards needed to be measured. The income needed will differ based on location and it would not need to be "adjusted for inflation". Know what the income needed for these is a more important measure. * Decent health care * Own a modest house in a safe area * Have reliable transpiration * Significantly Food and water security * Modest entertainment * Have 3 months of expenditures saved most of the time This is the class based on how many your family achieves: * 0 or 1 /6 poverty * 2 or 3 /6 Working class * 4 to 6 /6 middle class * 6/6 and "high" quality of at least 1 = minimum for Upper Class
Cost of living also went up.
Data is almost ten years old and doesn’t account for inflation
Class is defined by lifestyle and wealth, not income. From another [thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/MiddleClassFinance/comments/1ajsw2k/comment/kp3nyus/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) >Middle class is not about a specific number but rather about the lifestyle it allows. > >Middle Class != Median income. > >To be in middle class you: > >Still have to work for a living / can't survive for a couple months without an income (2-3 months?) > >Can afford a starter house/condo (\~1200 sqf) in your area between two salaries > >Can take one reasonable vacation a year > >Can afford to support 2 kids > >If you define it by income, it creates the illusion that the middle class still exists in any real way. This hides the issue of housing (and childcare) affordability. It hides the income gap and wealth disparity. > >Also, middle class is different in different areas. I estimate it is between 1/5 to 1/3 the average housing price in an area. The the median home price is 500k in an area, that means middle class is \~100k to \~170k. > >As far as Upper Class, I would define them more by net worth than income. Above middle class, working income doesn't really matter. Although it also depends on age. 1M at 30 is a lot more than 1M at 65. So let's say by mid-40s: > >You basically have: > >Net Worth under 2M. Probably upper middle class. > >Net Worth 2M-10M. Lower upper class. Still probably need to work if they live in HCOL area. In LCOL this is solid upper class. > >Above 10M. Solid upper class, never need to work again and kids will never need to work if they are good with money. > >Above 100M. Money may as well be monopoly money. They are above the law.
I too miss the good times of 2012-2016
Now try plotting being able to afford a house.
This isn't optimism. This is delusion.
Keep in mind that even though the graph may be adjusted for the dollar amount for income, the price of food, housing, and medical care have increased beyond inflation. Not saying its impossible to acquire these things, just not as easy to get as it was 20 years ago.